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en-usEngadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronicsCopyright 2018 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/20/blackberry-motion-review-its-all-about-the-battery-life/https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/20/blackberry-motion-review-its-all-about-the-battery-life/https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/20/blackberry-motion-review-its-all-about-the-battery-life/#comments

Back in the old days, when BlackBerry was the premier smartphone maker, you could count on its devices to feature two things: a physical keyboard and long battery life. Things have changed a lot since then, but part of that legacy lives on in the BlackBerry Motion. It might lack that classic keyboard, but it makes up for that with one of the biggest smartphone batteries I've used all year. That should keep some hardcore devotees happy, right? We're not exactly sure when (or even if) the Motion will land in the US, but that's just as well: It's a fine phone but overpriced for what it is.

You've got to give BlackBerry credit for refusing to die. After the underwhelming launch and life of BB10, the company pledged allegiance to Android, whipped up a strangely cool slider phone, then farmed out production of all new BlackBerrys to external partners. The journey has been difficult to watch at times, but it seems like the transition is starting to pay off. After a pair of all-touch phones, BlackBerry and partner TCL have released the KEYone, heralding the return of the classic candy-bar-with-keyboard design.

The Priv was an ambitious attempt at a flagship,and the DTEK50 and DTEK60 were barely recognizable as part of the line. The KEYone, however, is the first BlackBerry in years to feel, well, like a BlackBerry. Surprise, surprise: It's a pretty great little phone, too. Fans will be glad to know the KEYone is the best Android-powered BlackBerry to date, but I don't expect this to move the needle for many others.

With a review headline that reads "cheap, secure and better than expected," you might expect the device in question to have earned a high score. As it turns out, this is a BlackBerry we're talking about, which is to say, "better than expected" doesn't necessary mean you should actually buy one. The good news is that the new DTEK50 offers solid build quality at a reasonable price: just $299. For the money, you also get improved security over typical mid-range Android phones -- a potential selling point for prospective business customers. While this is indeed a decent choice for IT departments, individual users can get more for their money at a similar or slightly higher price (read: faster performance, longer battery life and superior image quality). Basically, then, while the DTEK50 surpassed our admittedly modest expectations, you can still do better.

BlackBerry's first Android phone was a curious, ambitious machine, so it's funny that the company's second turned out to be so ... practical. The $299 DTEK50 is affordable from the get-go, lacks a physical keyboard and was basically tailor-made for corporations to buy in bulk. Seriously: BlackBerry has been pretty candid about the fact that this is a "fleet" device, a supersecure phone it hopes will attract companies trying to trick out their mobile workforce. BlackBerry is trying to pitch this to regular people too, though, and in the process, it's hurling the DTEK into a crowded, crazy-competitive pool of midrange phones. Spoiler alert: It's probably not for you.

Sports fans often say that their team could pull itself out of a losing streak if only it'd play that exciting but untested, kid who's usually consigned to the bench. Gadgets fans sing a similar hymn about BlackBerry, opining that it would have remained relevant if it'd adopted Android to run on its phones. Now, several years too late, we're going to see what the long-deposed world champion can do with the world's most popular operating system. The result is the Priv, a premium Android smartphone-cum-hail-Mary that's offering two things other companies can't: Privilege and Privacy. It's also packing a slide-out physical keyboard, a 5.4-inch curved display and, naturally, the company's famous security software. But the device has something else that we've not seen in a BlackBerry phone since the launch of the Q10: the expectation that the device might actually be worth buying.

Two years ago, BlackBerry finally broke free of the monotonous cycle it had entrenched itself in by launching its first all-touchscreen device, the Z10. Despite it being a costly flop, the company formerly known as RIM has continued to explore touchscreen territory with the help of its poke-friendly BB10 OS. BlackBerry is no longer a stranger to the form factor: It quickly followed up the Z10 with the Z30, and now the new BlackBerry Leap. There's little that separates BlackBerry's three main touchscreen devices as far as internals are concerned, and therein lies the main problem with the Leap. Instead of trying something different, BlackBerry has kept well within its comfort zone and pushed out another mid-range, touchscreen handset that's marginally divergent from its predecessors. Don't get me wrong: If a Leap lands on your desk to replace an old work phone, you'll no doubt get on with it just fine. But, if your own money is on the table, you're probably going to want to take it elsewhere.

Let's put Apple, Samsung and all their ilk aside for few moments: It really wasn't that long ago that a homegrown Canadian company called BlackBerry (well, RIM at the time) basically ruled the mobile world. The outfit's slow decline has been chronicled, opined upon for years, and yet, some of BlackBerry's most ardent fans still clamor for the days when QWERTY keyboards and teensy trackpads were uber-efficient status symbols instead of the relics they are now.

Enter the BlackBerry Classic. The name says it all, really: It's a paean to BlackBerry's halcyon days, and it's got a look plucked straight out of 2011, to boot. We took one for an extended spin to see how BlackBerry's throwback formula holds up today, and (very long story short) it's mostly the past mashed up with a touch of the modern. The bigger question, as usual, is whether or not it's worth your time. I suspect you already know the answer, but read on for my full impressions.

That's an odd way to begin a review. But to give BlackBerry's latest handset, the Passport, as thorough a review as possible, I decided to type the entire thing from the phone itself. My twisted idea came from a realization that this (mostly) square oddity is the first phone with a physical keyboard that I've used since the Motorola Droid 4 in 2012 or the BlackBerry Q10 in 2013. It's not even a normal keyboard by modern smartphone standards -- it's a flattened, hybrid setup with both physical and virtual elements and a curiously placed space bar. Needless to say, it's an odd device, one that truly deserves the ultimate test: Can I use it to crank out several thousand words of text?

Of course, there's more to the Passport than just its odd shape and the company's desire to resurrect a now-antiquated smartphone feature. I'm going to dive into what sets this phone apart from the hundreds of others already on the market -- that is, if my thumbs hold up through the experience.

More Info

Let's be honest: it's not a great time to be BlackBerry right now. Each morning brings yet more news stories that hint -- no, scream -- at the company's rapid unraveling. In the nine days following the announcement of the Z30, the company halted its BBM rollout and announced plans tofire 4,500 employees. Meanwhile, T-Mobile withdrew retail support, Motorola started sniffing around BlackBerry's top talent and its manufacturing partner looked for an exit. Finally, BlackBerry entered into a sale agreement, and the company had to concede that it lost a billion dollars on unsold Z10 handsets. So, what does all of this make the Z30?

There had been plenty of rumors ahead of time that suggested BlackBerry would launch a phablet. The 5-inch Z30, however, isn't big enough to warrant that name, and the company itself has positioned the device as the flagship for the holiday season. That means the handset dodges comparisons with devices like the Galaxy Note, but instead stands in the line of fire between the iPhone 5s, Galaxy S 4, HTC One and Lumia 1020. Unlike those other devices, however, the Z30 isn't packing any flashy, headline-grabbing specs, nor does it offer bleeding-edge internals that will excite performance nuts. There's also the looming question of whether this hardware will make it over to the US in a timely fashion, as BlackBerry has only confirmed that it'll launch in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the UK (priced at £500 off-contract).

It's almost redundant to ask if this is the device that will save BlackBerry. After all, with the uncertainty surrounding the platform's future, we wouldn't be surprised if corporate buyers waited for the dust to settle before making more orders. Instead, let's ask if this handset, when judged on its own merits, is worth your cash. Is it the first step on a road to rejuvenation, or is the Z30 destined to become a footnote in technology history?

This is probably the most important smartphone that BlackBerry will launch in 2013. You see, the Z10 and Q10 were designed for diehards, gadget lovers and those who desired a like-for-like replacement for their aging Bolds. Unfortunately for CEO Thorsten Heins, those people were never the total sum of RIM's (now BlackBerry's) customer base. After all, it was the budget-conscious crowd that embraced BBM to the point where London's 2011 civil unrest was nicknamed the "BlackBerry riots," not to mention the company's popularity in the developing world. Given that the business most recently posted an $84 million quarterly loss and has only managed to ship 2.7 million BB10 devices, it'll be these customers, then, who the company will need to win back in order to keep its head above water. Unlike its struggling rivals, however, BlackBerry does have one thing its rivals do not: a pedigree in QWERTY keyboards that offer a real alternative to the legion of Android and Windows Phone touchscreens out there.

That's where the Q5 comes in -- a portrait QWERTY handset with a 3.1-inch display described as "youthful" and "fun," designed for markets outside of the US, with a variety of color options. But is that enough to tempt back the text addicts of Latin America and the disenfranchised voters of London? It's available for £320 ($490) off-contract in the UK, or free on plans from £21 ($32) per month, but is it enough of a handset to justify its mid-tier price? Can this form factor work in a world where even the cheapest phones can offer 4-inch, pixel-rich displays and broader app support? Is this the handset that BlackBerry needs, or the one it deserves? We could tell you at the top here, but that'd kinda negate the point of the following 2,613 words.%Gallery-193300%

You can't please everybody all the time, and if there's a company who knows this better than the rest, it's BlackBerry. At the showy launch for BlackBerry 10, the company finally unveiled its new stable of smartphones with which it would fight the likes of Apple, Samsung, HTC, Microsoft, Nokia and Google. No simple task, that, and so BlackBerry rolled out not one, but two weapons: the all-touch Z10 and the portrait-QWERTY Q10.

But there was a catch: only one would launch at a time. It was a staged attack, with the Z10 forming the initial volley. Many said this was a mistake, and that the Q10 and its familiar physical keyboard should have gone first, paving the way for the more radical, all-touch Z10. After what seems like an eternity, the $249 BlackBerry Q10 is finally ready for duty, so let's put it through its paces and see which of these fraternal twins is truly the flagship.%Gallery-186645%

For years now, the BlackBerry OS has occupied something of a special state, almost feeling as if it were thrown down into a pit and locked into a bar of carbonite, preserved in stasis for future generations to see. Want to show your kids what using a smartphone was like in 2006? You just needed to find a Bold on display at the local electronics store and let your little ones gaze wide-eyed at a sea of menus and tiny buttons.

BB7, then, was a disappointment for many, feeling like a bare-minimum update to those versions that came before rather than the complete QNX-based retooling we'd all been waiting for. The PlayBook showed us what was possible with a clean-sheet approach to a BlackBerry OS, and we wanted that on a phone. Now, two years after the release of that tablet, here we have it. It's BlackBerry 10. It's a wholly new experience, very different even than the PlayBook, and in general it's quite good. But is it good enough to thrive in a world dominated by iOS and Android? Let's find out.

One cannot overstate the importance of this phone. This, the BlackBerry Z10, is the device upon which the fate of BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) hangs. That's not to say that the company will disappear if the Z10 -- and the BlackBerry 10 OS that it contains -- is not a mass-market success. But if this phone does not do its job of extending the reach of the 'Berry OS beyond those die-hard loyalists who have clung on to their Bolds and Torches and Storms, it's safe to say that BlackBerry is in for some very hard times.

The company hasn't exactly bet the proverbial farm on this BB10 release, but with massive financial losses tempered only by job cuts, plus an absolutely tectonic shift among the executive leadership and corporate culture architected by CEO and President Thorsten Heins, the phrase "make or break" feels pretty apt. So, then, is this the phone that's good enough to woo buyers away from the Galaxy S III or the iPhone 5 or any of the other delicious devices on the other platforms? The short answer is that no, as of now it isn't quite -- but of course it's a lot more complicated than that. Join us as we explore.%Gallery-177378%

More Info

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of email. Yes, email! Sure, many of you have given up on the stuff in favor of more instant means of communication, but don't worry, because that's here too! Yes, the BlackBerry PlayBook, which was released 10 months ago, is now finally able to send messages all by itself. Sure, BlackBerry Bridge is still there and more useful than ever, tying the PlayBook even closer to your work-issued smartphone, but the 7-inch slate finally feels like it can stand a little more solidly on its own two feet. Thankfully that's not all -- this recently refreshed tablet has a few other tricks up its sleeve, most notable being the ability to run some (focus on the some) Android apps without having to resort to any messy tweaks or hacks. The experience isn't entirely clean, nor does it quite feel like the refresh the "two dot oh" moniker implies, but it is a nice step forward. Click on through to see what you get. %Gallery-148310%

The BlackBerry Curve 8300 emerged as one of the best smartphone ideas of 2007. It pre-dated the first Android handset by a full year, and unlike the original iPhone, it was priced within reach of the average consumer. It introduced the masses to the possibilities of a connected and capable handset, and was the primary catalyst for the BlackBerry's meteoric rise to household name. With each subsequent iteration, however, the Curve remained a handset geared toward first-time smartphone buyers, and that axiom feels particularly true today.

We're now presented with the Curve 9360 ($29.99, on contract), a device that's ostensibly hobbled in order to differentiate itself from RIM's higher-end offerings, most notably the Torch 9810 ($49), Torch 9860 ($99) and Bold 9900 ($199). Specifically, we refer to its lack of a touchscreen. The omission will certainly be a deal-breaker for some, but whether it causes the market to reject it as a whole remains unknown. For our part, we're most interested in the impact on the handset's usability and its relevance in an increasingly competitive environment. In other words, has RIM included enough improvements to keep its Curve franchise afloat, or will this iteration sink like a stone? Join us after the break, as we delve into the Curve 9360 and explore these finer details.%Gallery-145664%
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attblackberryblackberry 7blackberry curveblackberry curve 9360blackberry osblackberry7blackberrycurveblackberrycurve9360blackberryoscurve 9360curve93600edofhspakeyboardmobilemobilepostcrossnfcqwertyresearch in motionresearchinmotionreviewrimsmartphonesmartphonesvideoThu, 26 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -050021|20154288https://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/blackberry-porsche-design-p9981-review/https://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/blackberry-porsche-design-p9981-review/https://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/blackberry-porsche-design-p9981-review/#comments

Research in Motion, regardless of how you may view its recent history or its long-term future, still has a stronghold on the corporate world. Its lineup of BlackBerry smartphones are known for great battery life, comfortable keyboards with intuitive shortcuts, top-notch native email and Enterprise clients and -- most important to businesses -- unrivaled security features. Sure, its influence is waning as competitors have caught up in some areas (and surpassed it in others), but there are plenty of companies that have clung to their CrackBerries and held on tight.

RIM's been hard at work trying to regain lost momentum by introducing a series of new devices featuring its latest OS, BlackBerry 7, and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9930 series has been the star of the show so far. The problem is, it's not flashy enough. How is a C-level exec supposed to walk proudly on the golf course with a $300 (subsidized) phone? Talk about embarrassing. Have no fear, poor corporate top dog, luxury brand Porsche Design has come up with a solution: the $2,300 BlackBerry P'9981, a Vertu-ized version of that lesser handset you wouldn't be caught dead using.

The P'9981 is available only in the UK and the Middle East for now, so until the device arrives in the US this Spring, anyone who lives stateside will have to rely on retailers to import some in. Fortunately we got the hookup by our friends at Negri Electronics, who happily lent us one of the few handsets they have in stock. As a result, we're now able to discuss the real questions circling around such a Richie Rich smartphone: what in the blue blazes makes this so expensive? Is it even worth it? How different is it from a standard BlackBerry Bold 9900? You'll find these answers and plenty of mysteries unravelled after the break. %Gallery-145485%
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blackberryblackberry 7blackberry bold 9900blackberry os 7blackberry p9981blackberry7blackberrybold9900blackberryos7blackberryp9981mobilemobilepostcrossp9981porscheporsche designporsche design p9981porschedesignporschedesignp9981research in motionresearchinmotionreviewrimvideoTue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:00 -050021|20155148https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/30/cobra-tag-review/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/30/cobra-tag-review/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/30/cobra-tag-review/#comments

Phone, keys, wallet. Discovering that you're missing any of these three items could easily trigger a panic attack, yet they're all so easy to misplace. How many times have you spent twenty minutes looking for keys that were buried between the couch cushions? The Cobra Tag may help you win that losing battle. Acting as a Bluetooth device that attaches to your key ring and connects to your phone, it gives you the opportunity to find the missing item if it's less than 30 feet away. It can also send notifications when the two devices are out of range from each other. The concept sounds convenient, but how does it work in practice? Let's find out.
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androidandroid 2.1android 2.2android 2.3android2.1android2.2android2.3appblackberrybluetoothcobracobra tagcobrataggoogleresearch in motionresearchinmotionreviewrimvideoTue, 30 Aug 2011 16:00:00 -040021|20023752https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-bold-9930-review/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-bold-9930-review/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-bold-9930-review/#comments

It's been something of a long time coming, this emboldened Bold. We got our first glimpse of the thing in February, spent some quality time with it back in June, and since then have sat around eagerly awaiting its release. Now, here it is. From a distance, or at a quick glance, it looks little changed from 2008's Bold 9000. But get closer, pick it up, and the difference is astonishing.

RIM has gone to great pains to talk up this device's high-end design, its luxurious stylings, its sophisticated aesthetic. We're far from Vertu territory here, but the first time this phone hits your palm you know a lot of people spent a lot of time making it feel just right -- even if it still looks just the same. Of course, it's what's inside that counts, so join us as we find out whether the soft and hard bits beneath the surface can do the business too.
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1.2ghzblackberryblackberry 7blackberry app worldblackberry boldblackberry osblackberry os 7blackberry7blackberryboldblackberryos7boldhtml 5html5keyboardnfcos 7os70qwertyreviewrimsmartphonevideowi-fi1Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:01:00 -040021|20017980https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-torch-9850-review/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-torch-9850-review/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-torch-9850-review/#comments

Monza. It's a beautiful part of Italy, a majestic park split by one of the most historic racetracks in the world, and it was also the codename for this rather more homely looking phone. This is a handset that would go on to be known by many names (Storm 3, Touch...) before receiving its final moniker: Torch 9850. Why all the pseudonyms, and why choose to confusingly overlap this with the somewhat similar but rather different Torch 9810 that's also officially launching today?

Maybe RIM didn't know what to make of this keyboard-free phone. Maybe the company wanted to distance itself from the Storm. Or, maybe what we have here is a smartphone that's trying to find an identity by sadly ditching the feature that, for many, makes a BlackBerry a BlackBerry: the physical keyboard. How does this smoothie compare to the others, and is it worth sacrificing all the QWERTY wonder found within the 9810? Read on to find out.

In the fall of 2010, AT&T stores nationwide installed a mysterious shroud housing some sort of exhibit. Even employees didn't even know what was inside, and anyone caught tampering with the makeshift wall in order to find out was terminated. What was this strange hype-building marketing ploy? A new iPad? Perhaps it was some secret Android device that nobody had heard of? The atmosphere was thick with suspense. When the curtain was finally lifted, it turned out to be... a BlackBerry Torch 9800.

This curious marketing attempt must've worked at least to some extent, since Research in Motion decided to tempt fate a second time with the Torch 9810. Known in its early days as the "Torch 2," the new version of the portrait QWERTY slider was released to much less pomp and circumstance. This time it was unveiled alongside two new BlackBerry BFFs: the Bold Touch 9900 / 9930 and the Torch 9850 / 9860. The 9810 in particular wasn't a surprise because we'd been given the opportunity to preview the device in May. Though it's nearly identical to the original, it packs a processor that nearly doubles the speed -- a behind-the-scenes upgrade culminating in a night-and-day contrast. But how does it fare against the blooming market of superphones that are flooding the market? And is this the best BlackBerry you can buy today? Let's find out.
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att0blackberryblackberry torchblackberry torch 2blackberry torch 9810blackberrytorchblackberrytorch2blackberrytorch9810graphicsliquidliquid graphicsliquidgraphicsos 7os7qwertyresearch in motionresearchinmotionreviewrimslidertorch 2torch 9810torch2torch9810videoTue, 16 Aug 2011 09:00:00 -040021|20017146https://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/14/blackberry-playbook-reviews-show-that-its-not-an-ipad-killer/https://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/14/blackberry-playbook-reviews-show-that-its-not-an-ipad-killer/https://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/14/blackberry-playbook-reviews-show-that-its-not-an-ipad-killer/#comments

RIM is aiming to launch its PlayBook tablet on April 19, but reviews of this QNX-powered tablet started to hit the wire last night. The consensus among reviewers suggests the PlayBook will not threaten Apple's dominance in the tablet market.

Most reviews point to the lack of available applications for the tablet as one major detriment. The PlayBook will launch with a catalog of 3,000 applications, a figure derived from the number of developers that have submitted applications to the BlackBerry App World. This number was bolstered by RIM's promise to give a free PlayBook to each developer whose application is approved before the launch of the tablet device. RIM expects to expand this catalog with Android and BlackBerry OS emulators that let users run applications from the Android Market and the BlackBerry World. This feature will land later this year.

A small application catalog is one drawback to the BlackBerry, but there are more. Read on to find out what other issues reviewers encountered when using RIM's tablet device.

The words "play" and "book" are a bit of an odd choice for RIM's latest attempt at consumer relevance, a tablet that, at its core, runs one of the most hardcore and industry-friendly operating systems known to man. The OS is QNX and the hardware is, of course, the BlackBerry PlayBook. It's an enterprise-friendly offering that's also out to conquer the consumer tablet ecosphere, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the BlackBerry handsets that have filled the pockets of corporate executives and BBM addicts around the globe.

It's something of a serious tablet when compared to the competition running software from Apple and Google and, while it certainly has games, its biggest strengths are rather more boring. It does a really great job at displaying PowerPoint presentations, for example, and has the security chops to keep last quarter's dismal sales figures from falling into the wrong hands. Exciting stuff? No, but useful features for sure, and regardless of whether you find those intriguing or boring this is RIM's seven-inch, Flash-having but 3G-lacking tablet clad in an unassuming but extremely sophisticated exterior. It's what's running behind the glass that disappoints.%Gallery-121160%
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7-inchblackberryblackberry bridgeblackberrybridgebridgeengadget awardsengadget awards 2011engadgetawardsengadgetawards2011featuredfeaturesomapplaybookqnxreviewrimseven-inchtablettexas instrumentstexasinstrumentstivideoWed, 13 Apr 2011 21:00:00 -040021|19911627https://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/wakemate-review/https://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/wakemate-review/https://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/wakemate-review/#comments

Sleep. It's where some get to relax, some get to be comfortable, and some get to be a Viking. But, for others, that overnight period can be a stressful time, full of tossing and turning and mornings highlighted only by ground beans and hot showers. For those unhappy souls there are ever more dreamtime gadgets working to help the situation and turn morning monsters into drowsy-eyed angels, devices like the FitBit, and latest among them is WakeMate, a $60 accelerometer-having wristband that charts your nocturnal sleep patterns. Sadly, we've found it can also be responsible for some early morning spikes to our blood pressure.
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acceleromoeterandroidappblackberrybluetoothfeaturefeaturedfeaturesiosminiusbreviewreviewedsleep monitorsleepmonitorusbwakemateTue, 21 Dec 2010 13:00:00 -050021|19771745https://www.engadget.com/2010/08/04/blackberry-torch-review/https://www.engadget.com/2010/08/04/blackberry-torch-review/https://www.engadget.com/2010/08/04/blackberry-torch-review/#comments

When we began our review of the BlackBerry Torch (aka the Bold 9800), our hearts were all aflutter. The leaked shots we'd been seeing of some kind of Palm Pre-esque RIM slider were different and frankly weird enough to cause a kind of low hum gadget lust. Furthermore, although no one on the Engadget team was blown away by what the company had shown us in recent BlackBerry OS 6 demo videos, the promise of a substantially revamped UI and new, Webkit-powered browser certainly got us interested. Even if Research in Motion had been slipping on its once-unassailable smartphone game, there was a sentiment amongst the team that the opportunity for a return to innovative, industry-driving design was wide open for the Canadian company. So when we got our very own Torch to play with, we were understandably excited. A new OS, a new form-factor (completely new for RIM), and from what we could tell, a new outlook from the company about where it wanted to target this product: namely, the average consumer. A great story in the making, no? But it's a fiercely competitive market out there, with devices like the EVO 4G, iPhone 4, and Galaxy S line all vying for the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of the buyer. Can the BlackBerry Torch pick up where hugely successful models like the Curve and Bold have left off? Or is the new phone too little and too late in an industry where technology advances not by tiny step but leaps and bounds? Get the answer to that question -- and many, many more -- in the full Engadget review below! %Gallery-98858%
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0blackberryblackberry 9800blackberry sliderblackberry torchblackberry torch 9800blackberry9800blackberrysliderblackberrytorchblackberrytorch9800research in motionresearchinmotionreviewrimslidersmartphonetorchtorch 9800torch9800videoWed, 04 Aug 2010 21:00:00 -040021|19580760https://www.engadget.com/2010/02/25/smartphone-gps-shootout-google-ovi-and-verizon/https://www.engadget.com/2010/02/25/smartphone-gps-shootout-google-ovi-and-verizon/https://www.engadget.com/2010/02/25/smartphone-gps-shootout-google-ovi-and-verizon/#comments

It wasn't long ago that getting somewhere required a map on paper. You know, something you bought or that came groaning out of your tired old printer. GPS navigation units made those maps obsolete, but now they too are under threat. With smartphones invading pockets everywhere it's no surprise that their next assault would be on the dashboard, early volleys shaking up financial markets worldwide. That was just the beginning of a shock and awe campaign that will leave no automotive interior untouched -- and hopefully no driver unsure how many miles until the next Dunkin' Donuts. Google Navigation was the first to really shake things up, while Nokia's Ovi Maps is a more recent addition to the battlefield and the latest VZ Navigator, 5.0, lets Windows Mobile and BlackBerry users join the fray. We've taken this sampling of the best built-in smartphone navigation options (the set of paid add-on options for iPhone is a beast we'll be taming later), learning which you should trust to get you to where you're going and to dodge construction and traffic on the way there. Read on for a turn-by-turn exploration of each option's highs and lows.
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androidblackberryfeaturefeaturedfeaturesgoogle androidgoogle mapsgoogle navgoogle navigationgoogleandroidgooglemapsgooglenavgooglenavigationgpsmobile navigationmobilenavigationn97 minin97mininokianokia n97 mininokia ovi mapsnokian97mininokiaovimapsovi mapsovimapsreviewverizonverizon wirelessverizonwirelessvz navigatorvznavigatorThu, 25 Feb 2010 11:54:00 -050021|19372600